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Letter: The deck is stacked for the rich

Cal Thomas’ column of Oct. 17 blames the American citizenry for our federal debt because we are irresponsible, feel entitled and expect the government to take care of us. I disagree.

I recently attended a lecture at Kansas State University by Edward Wolff, an economics professor from New York University. He spoke about rising income inequality in the United States over the past 40 to 50 years. The top 10 percent of earners in the U.S. make 50 percent of the income. Wolff also showed that societies with high inequality have low economic mobility, meaning people born rich stay rich and those born poor stay poor. People of humble origins who become rich are the exception, not the rule.

Wolff showed many graphs proving that the rich have been getting richer while middle and lower class workers have had stagnant or declining incomes in real dollars. He also showed why. The 1970s had a confluence of events, such as increasing international trade, changing technology, oil crises, weakening of unions, etc., that contributed. However, the most significant trend was the decline over decades in income taxes on the wealthy from an unreasonable high of 92 percent in 1955 to a low of 28 percent during President George W. Bush’s administration. In short, the rise in inequality has not been due to a surge in laziness or the expectation of government handouts but rather is due to successful lobbying by the rich to stack the deck in their favor. Our government’s staggering debt is partly due to the failure to tax the rich enough. We also must reduce government spending but shouldn’t do so on the backs of our poorest and most vulnerable.

Thomas and other conservatives suffer from the delusion the rich are all self-made and therefore more deserving. Wolff showed that was not the case. The smugness of people like Thomas, who imagine those who stock grocery store shelves, clean motel rooms and do countless other low-paying jobs are lacking industriousness, responsibility and moral fiber, is nauseating.